My friends, today we are gathered to mourn the death of the “I Drink Your Milkshake” gag line.

Every joke has its own lifetime. I remember when I was a young boy and “take my wife… please” coughed its last spastic breath. We never quite get over this experience, and some of us (like Mike Myers) go into a period of denial. But we must move on.

Much as “THIS! IS! SPARTA!” passed ignobly into the ether, “I Drink Your Milkshake” has been reduced to deadly repetition, drained of all actual humour and become a signal for imitation wit. Variations on “I Drink Your Milkshake” have sputtered forth until the line has lost all meaning and context.

“I Drink Your Milkshake” is survived by “I am an oilman…” and “You’re just a bastard in a basket.” Those wishing to donate charitably in the joke’s name are encouraged to send money to David Cross’s agent.

I have not seen the movie, but after hearing the line from my brother, I decided that in the event that I join the And-1 Streetball Tour, I will go by the name, “Milkshake,” because anyone having to face me would of course have their milkshake drunk. Now that the joke is dead, that glorious possibility will never be.

We do “There’s an ocean of oil under here and only I can get it out,” “If I say I am an oil man, you must agree,” and “I run a family business, this is my boy, HW.” But then, we really like the movie, and I do a fair DDL impression.

A friend of mine told me the other day that his final wish when he dies is that I take his ashes and sneak them into peoples’ food and whatnot… So, since I do a fair John Huston myself, I started “If you have a milkshake, and I’m IN your milkshake, then you drink me. *slurp* You drink me up!”

So yeah, it’s safe to say that line is a dead horse that should only be dragged out and flogged once every blue moon.

“I’ve just spend the last two hours pounding on the same one-dimensional key again and again… see, if you have time and I have time… See, this is time right here. And my time can waaaaaste your time while I pick-pocket you…

I. Waste. Your. Time.

“I SUCK IT UP!!!”

(slurping sound=timespace continuum of every showing of There Will Be Blood)

I dunno… listening to the clip in isolation is still pretty freaky. The DDL lines in general will have some comedic purchase down the road, if used in appropriate situations, precisely because the joke will be forgotten — it was never big enough to get played out. Starting the line at the slurp works, too — “*SLURRRRP* I drink it up!” All kinds of great inappropriate uses for that.

Okay, I didn’t think milkshakes would be in existance given the time setting of There Will Be Blood. I just know that Countdown showed the clip at the beginning a few times around the Oscars, but it sounded like Keith Olbermann was adding the “milkshake!” part of the line. That’s actually a direct quote from the movie? In what context?!?

Kate, it’s towards the end of the movie where Daniel Day Lewis’ oilman character is explaining to Paul Dano’s preacher character why they can’t drill for oil in a field the preacher has access to. The oilman has been drilling in properties surrounding the preacher’s. He explains it using the example of a milkshake that has two straws in it, and if he, the oilman, has been drilling oil from the surrounding fields then he has, in effect, been drinking the preacher’s milshake. He’s been drinking it up.